United States Navy, Lieutenant Commander, World War II. "He enlisted in the United States Navy in 1943 and became a commissioned officer. During his service in the Pacific he was wounded three times and awarded the Bronze Star and the Navy Cross. After leaving active duty in 1946 with the rank of lieutenant commander, he returned to private law practice."
A State of Remembrance, 2005.

United States Navy, World War II. "In 1943 Charles enlisted in the Navy. Being from Stampede Valley and knowing almost nothing about ships or the Navy, when the enlistment officer offered him alternative commissions as either a lieutenant junior grade or an ensign (the lower rank), he mistakenly selected the lower rank as ensign. He served in the Pacific as a group commander of assault landing craft during several invasions, including Okinawa, Iwo Jima, Leyte Gulf, and Lingayen Gulf. In the Lingayen Gulf landing, a Japanese mortar hit squarely in the middle of his craft, destroying the boat and killing all thirty soldiers and crew, except for him. He was knocked into the water, unconscious, but was rescued by another ship.
During the war, his mother became deathly ill. Lyndon Johnson learned of the illness, and orchestrated the sending of a secret message to him conveying the bad news. Charles asked for leave to return to see his mother, but his request was refused. He then went AWOL, hitch-hiking with sympathetic supply-plane crews across the Pacific. He arrived at the hospital in Waco and saw his mother for 30 minutes. Then she died. After a complicated return trip to the Pacific-including a stay on a nearly deserted island with a band of Australian Navy deserters who kindly fed and took care of him for a week-he returned to his ship and his captain reassigned him to duty, without discipline."
Texas State Cemetery.

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